Another Year
Cinema Nova, 03/02/2011
Movie #8 for 2011
Another Year is the ultimate in character studies. While there is almost no plot, a significant running time allows for a full and detailed description of some sympathetic, nuanced, pained and sometimes painful characters.
There’s Tom (JIM BROADBENT, Hot Fuzz), a geologist, still happily married to his long-time wife Gerri (RUTH SHEEN, Vera Drake), a counselor. Their son, Joe (OLIVER MALTMAN), is a lawyer for poor folks and is well adjusted but unable to find a girlfriend. Gerri’s workmate Mary (LESLIE MANVILLE, Vera Drake), is flighty and bighearted but desperately lonely. As is Tom’s old friend Ken (PETER WIGHT, Atonement).
The film plays out one event in each season for some or all of the above - usually something small like an inconsequentially ordinary visit – to showcase the characters, rather than to drive a plot or some large drama.
I like that there is enough time and scope for each character to organically reveal both a good side and a bad – or, perhaps something more subtle than that, a noble side and a fallible. The performances are all terrific. The dialogue often feels very organic (true to writer/director MIKE LEIGH's signature style) and the trueness of the relationships – long suffering, strained and/or affectionate - is compelling. But the flip side of that is that some of the scenes are, in actual fact, not all that interesting. Twice we see lengthy dialogue with a friend who is lonely and drinks too much and would just love to have someone to go away on holiday with, if only they had the money and could take more time of from a job they hated a little less. But that’s it, isn’t it? How many times have you had a conversation like that? Another Year is lovely for it’s realism, but also flawed as a film because of exactly the same thing.
